Getting Back Into The Swing Of Things

Firstly, a tip of the hat to Nate for showing me how to produce such an awesome graphic as seen above.

Recently, I havn’t been posting here as much as I’d like to. I normally try to keep the posting rate at around 1 article every other day, or more if possible, but it hasn’t been easy to do this in the past few weeks due to University applications and the like.

This and schoolwork has taken up a lot of my spare time, meaning that I only get a chance to check my emails. Sure if I had been more productive with my time, I could have got a lot of things done, but tiredness has also been a factor, and some days, all I feel like doing is pigging out in front of the TV.

As a result of this lazyness, I’ve started to read quite a bit as of late as well. This is very important, even for an active blogger, as you always need things to write about, and these ideas can be easier to form if you’ve read the latest news in your niche. The most interesting topics which I’m beginning to study are Affiliate Marketing and Google Adwords.

This study has mostly taken place by reading other blogs. These sites are informative, but most importantly, show real life examples of real life experiments, and the potential profits/losses that can be made with the Pay-Per-Click system of advertising that so many people are into nowadays.

But Pay-Per-Click isn’t all I’ve been doing. Affiliate Marketing can take many other forms, and I’ve tried advertising affiliate programs on other blogs, which you may have picked up on. The results will be coming at the end of the advertising month, so I can give you guys a full run-down on stats and revenues. Let’s just say that this has been a small success already.

Anyway, this post was just to tell you avid readers, that I’m getting back into the swing of things, and will try and revert back to my usual rhythm. Some important announcements will be following in the next few days, so keep your eyes peeled. The results of my affiliate marketing adventures will also be posted - so keep checking back here!

In the mean time, I hope that you’ve been more productive than I have. Autumn is finally here, so make the most of the last drops of summer and get in gear for the busy and most lucrative Christmas season.

Massive Success With DealDotCom

OK, so that title was a massive exaggeration. But deep down I am pretty pleased with my DealDotCom performance so far, seeing as how I’ve only got 7 first-tier affiliates.

This is only an extremely short post, but I wanted to know how you guys are getting on with DealDotCom. Are you an affiliate, what are your earnings like? If you’re a buyer, how has the service been for you?

Glowing blogLOUDER Reviews

Around a month ago, I kicked off a competition to celebrate the launch of blogLOUDER - my own Blog Consulting company. The contest lasted for a couple of days and the response was fantastic - altogether there were 68 unique entrants who posted 112 entries altogether. The final winners of the Consulting time were April, Ellie and Sue.

I managed to have a chat with all three lovely folks on Instant Messenger. As most of you probably know, I prefer using Instant Message services, as they are more informal, easy to send links and material through, and easy to store for later reading.

Whilst I had already managed to obtain several great testimonials from previous users of my services, I also wanted each of the Winners to give me a short review, so that I could build on any negatives or problems they had with the service and so that I could ensure that each of my customers left the conversation feeling happy with blogLOUDER and reenergised.

Sue from Sueblimely posted the first review of her 1 hour Consultation. Here’s a short snippet of what she had to say:

I was pleased with the results of the consultation. Adnan really does knows a lot about blogging. He speaks from personal experience and was able to fill in some gaps for me, especially with regard to SEO, blog promotion, increasing readership and RSS subscriptions. The consultation was tailored well to the requirements of this blog. Although I have done a lot of research, the specific recommendations helped me understand more clearly what I needed to do myself…

…Thanks Adnan and good luck with your venture. I reckon your friendliness and helpfulness have been a big factor in your own success. It was really good to have a long chat with a fellow blogger too. Being amongst non-blogging family and friends I thoroughly enjoyed having the chance to do so.

Sue also goes indepth to talk about the aspects we covered in the talk, so you can see what you’ll be getting for your money.

Next in the review line was Ellie from ThePinkC - here’s her fantastic review of the 30 minute consultation:

The advice I received during my blog consulting was invaluable. I have a more clear idea about what direction to take my site and how to improve my chances of becoming a popular online destination! There were a few things that I’m not 100% sold on, so I will sign up for more consulting in the future and discuss them with Adnan.

After my experience with blogLOUDER, I can truly say that it is an investment worth making, if you are interested in becoming a better blogger. I am definitely going to sign up for more consulting in the future, as I implement some of the changes Adnan proposed and I begin working on restrengthening my site’s brand.

I wasn’t able to get in touch with April - but after the conversation she said that she thoroughly enjoyed the session. If you’re reading this April, shoot me an email, and I’ll get your testimonial up ASAP.

In the meantime, I’ve already had people ordering reviews and Consultations, so have been very impressed with the results. I hope these 2 reviews have helped to break the ice and to put away those skeptical voices that we all have lurking in our minds. As always, please feel free to email me at any time - even just for a friendly wave, if you have any niggling doubts, queries or questions about blogLOUDER.

An Interview With Marc Quarles, Owner Of DealDotCom

When I woke up today, I was greeted by bucket-loads of articles in my feedreader notifying me of two new services - and 2 new affiliate programs to promote.

The first of these was BlogRush. Created by John Reese (the famous internet marketing expert), the widget which you can see in my sidebar aims to increase your blog traffic by showing your articles on other relevant blogs in your niche. To help spread the word, the creators have put in place a 10-tier referral scheme, which allows you to get your articles seen to a wide audience. For a better explanation, checkout the video on their homepage.

I don’t want to do a full review of this now, instead I’m waiting to gather more data before I can analyse the effectiveness of the system.

Instead, I wanted to bring you an exciting interview with the brains behind Internet Marketing’s newest service - DealDotCom. So far to my knowledge, this is the first interview with Marc Quarles, the owner, about DealDotCom. The official launch is on Tuesday 18th, so enjoy you faithful Blogtrepreneur readers!

Hey, firstly welcome to Blogtrepreneur and thanks for doing this interview on such short notice!

Sure thing, Adnan… there’s nothing we like to do better on a beautiful Sunday morning than getting interviewed. It’s what we live for!

So, what is DealDotCom and how does it work for those of us unlucky enough not to be caught up in the hype?

Starting Tuesday, September 18th, we’ll offer one single internet marketing, blogging, or online business related product for sale. The product will be available at a significant discount, and there will be a limited quantity available.

That product will be available for 24 hours only, or until it sells out. We start selling a new product the next day at midnight US Central time.

Behind the action there’s a two-tier affiliate program… so if anyone you refer to DealDotCom ever buys anything, you get paid (35% of DDC’s profits). Also, if anyone they refer ever buys anything, you get paid (15% of DDC’s profits).

How did you come up with the idea? (I never knew buying internet marketing products could be so fun!)

I came up with the idea last January when I observed my wife going to the big “deal of the day” websites on the internet every single morning, like clockwork. When I asked her why she kept going there every day, she said “It’s addictive… I just have to know what they’re selling each day.”

Understand, my wife is married to a marketer, and she’s learned tons of marketing through osmosis, so anything that can grab and hold her attention was something I knew I needed to research.

After some in-depth research, and a few of my own personal twists, the DealDotCom idea was born.

As internet marketers yourselves, can you give us any tips into a successful product launch?
Read more

5 Simple Ways To Maintain A Super-Sleek Blogging Image

This post was originally written for Josh Buckley, but was not needed - so I thought it would make a nice article and create lively discussion here.

Here in the blogosphere, your image is everything. Unfortunately, because of the nature of the net, this doesn’t mean that your physical appearance and the way you dress for example is going to help you transform your blog - it means that there is a different medium whereby people can judge your professionalism and the air of quality around your webspace.

Fortunately for us webloggers, there are a number of things you can do in order to maintain a super-sleek and top notch blogging image. But firstly, why do you need a good facade?

• Trust - readers often trust a blogger who makes a good impression, especially if it’s their first visit to the site. This trust will help to ensure that the viewer comes back to your page, subscribes to your blog, and buys the affiliate products you recommend for example, helping to build your online income streams.
• Referrals - after you’ve created an influence on the reader, they are more likely to link you up in linking posts, to tell their friends and family about you and to help your site growth in general. Never under-estimate the power of Word Of Mouth.
• Respect - a trim blogger always commands respect from others in the ’sphere. Take for example the Problogger, who writes in a formal way, who comments in a friendly and professional manner and who’s blog design is well-oiled. Contrast this with Shoemoney (who I myself respect a great deal) - who uses poor grammar, who sometimes uses derogatory language in posts and has a wicked, pluginified design, and you can see how some viewers may have a lack of respect or a lot of respect for different bloggers.

“So Adnan, how am I able to start or maintain a great blogging image that will help me to gain readers and recommendations?”

1. Focus on great content. We’ve heard that phrase a lot of times before, but what does it actually mean? For me, it represents making sure every single post is readable - vocabulary and grammar wise. It makes sure that each post I produce is aesthetically pleasing with images to break-up the text, and it makes sure that each post itself is useful to the reader and contains nuggets of information they didn’t know before. The keywords here: Add Value.

2. Work on your blog design. The blog’s face is something that should appeal to first-time viewers as soon as they’ve hit your page. Make sure it’s not too over-powering, but at the same time it should give all the information about who you are as a blogger, the type of content you write and how serious you are about being successful. Having a standard Wordpress template won’t help you here.

3. Respond to comments in a timely manner. This point is very important as it will help readers to feel part of your site community, which will then encourage them to signup to your RSS feed or by email, and will help to trigger the all important WOM recommendations. Be sure to address each commenter individually at first, although this can start to get harder as people leave more and more comments.

4. Respond to emails quickly and formally. Whilst the person writing to you may have been casual with their choice of words, be careful to choose the right words and make every email sound professional and respectful. Try not to check your emails every minute of the day, but once or twice a day will make sure that you don’t neglect any urgent letters. Don’t forget to always include a signature composing of your site address, you and your position, and if possible an image or a link to your site’s feed.

5. Make your comments insightful and “clickable”. Your reputation isn’t only being judged on your own blog. People will also judge you as you make your rounds to your mate’s sites and to other blogs you wish to comment on. Make sure that again your choice of wording is professional and that your thoughts are very useful to other comment-readers. Make them want to click on your name to read more about what you have to offer.

There we are. My short 5 tips for making sure that people won’t forget who you are in the blogosphere. I’ve obviously missed out a lot of points, but wanted to ask the readers for your ideas into maintaining a super-sleek blogging image. Reply in the comments or email us directly!

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